Author: astrobob

My name is Bob King and I work at the Duluth News Tribune in Duluth, Minn. as a photographer and photo editor. I'm also an amateur astronomer and have been keen on the sky since age 11. My modest credentials include membership in the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) where I'm a regular contributor, International Meteorite Collectors Assn. and Arrowhead Astronomical Society. I also teach community education astronomy classes at our local planetarium and recently had my first book published, "Night Sky with the Naked Eye" (available on amazon.com) about all the wonderful things to see at night with just your bare eyeballs.

Remember Venus? The last time most of us saw it was in late November low in the east at dawn. That’s also the same time Saturn made its last appearance at dusk in the west. That makes Venus the first bright planet to return to the evening sky for almost three months. Sure feels longer.… Read More

I do enjoy a big picture perspective. You too? As part of an engineering test, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and Moon using its navigation camera on January 17 from a distance of 39.5 million miles (63.6 million km). When the camera snapped the image, the spacecraft was moving away from… Read More

Before I gave my wife a Valentine’s Day card and gift, even before she awoke, I got up and drove to a clear spot to watch and photograph the sunrise. Along the way, my heart sank when I saw that low clouds and haze muddied the horizon. I almost turned back. Despite the mistiness, the… Read More

Larger telescopes will be able to keep track of the speeding Tesla Roadster as it continues along its solar orbit, but for small and amateur telescopes, the time is fast approaching when the car will become too faint to photograph. That’s why Italian astrophysicist Gianluca Masi is holding a “Goodbye, Tesla Roadster” event on Wednesday… Read More

Chances are you’ve seen Orion’s Belt this winter. It’s hard to miss the striking symmetry of those three equally-spaced bright stars in a row. The Belt appears due south around 8 p.m. local time in mid-February. Not far from it another bright star-pattern calls for our attention, the Winter Triangle. It’s big, bright and faces… Read More